Confessions of Real Shopaholics
Like alcoholism or drug addiction, an addiction to shopping can mask underlying problems like depression or anxiety disorder, and the negative impact on relationships and finances can be devastating.
“Often the people who are really almost barely making ends meet feel like they need to keep up with the Joneses the most,” says Schulman. “They’re more driven to go over budget, partly because they don’t have enough.”
This problem tends to affect young people in particular, who in addition to lacking spending power, also fall prey to marketing tactics and pressure from peers. “For younger people, culturally, they’ve experienced a fairly recent shift in consumerism,” says Shulman. “The peer pressure is part of that, and young people are more into fashion.”
Coghill recalls one 20-something client who was earning $50,000 a year and spending “nearly half that,” she says. “She was spending $2,000 a month, and all it was doing was going toward clothes. Everything else in her budget was normal, but that one problem ate away at her credit.”
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